Analysis of potential instabilities in agent-based smart grid control systems

While the amount of electricity generated from small scale, distributed, renewable energy sources rises, the imminent risk of a system collapse induced by a tailspin of control elements is counteracted by a raise in control complexity. As decentralized controls are a viable solution for distributed and complex problems many systems envisioned to tackle tomorrows challenges of our electricity grid are agent based networks. The complexity of such systems makes them difficult to analyze and hard to handle. One of the major problems coming with decentralized control solutions are stability problems resulting in oscillations of the controlled systems. In this paper we discuss disturbances in smart grids resulting in system instabilities and present a possible solution for predicting and handling this type of problems.